Illinois home-based child care providers who refused to join a union designated by the state of Illinois to represent them, yet were compelled by the state for years to pay so-called “fair share” fees to that union to negotiate on their behalf, should not be able to force the union to pay them their money back, even after the state government and union agreed the law that forced them to pay the fair share fees should be considered unconstitutional, a federal judge has ruled.

Former employees of a company specializing in providing money to people looking to sue have sued their ex-employer, saying the company improperly forced employees to work too many hours without overtime pay, and has wrongly attempted to enforce employment agreements forbidding former employees from working for competitors for as many as two years.

A federal judge has given the green light to a class action against the makers of Rustoleum, saying, to this point, the plaintiffs in the nationwide warranty and consumer fraud litigation over “latent defects” in the Restore deck restoration product have produced enough evidence and legal precedent to move forward with their case.